The Edge of Darkness
by misslucy21
Summary: It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.: Taylor Benson
1. Chapter 1

The Edge of Darkness

MissLucy21

* * *

AN: No, you're not crazy. This had been All These Things, and I haven't changed anything except the title and the front quote to chapter 1. See, what happened was as I got the story down on paper, I realized that it wasn't going to work the way I thought. I had chosen the title All These Things and the song that had gone with it for a very specific reason, and this story just wasn't going to get to part that it applied to smoothly. Apparently, there are three stories here- I didn't realize. So, I changed the title. If you read chapters 1-3 of All These Things, you can skip to chapter 4 and you won't have missed anything. It's still the sequel to Blind Memory. I still don't own anything you recognize.

The timeline is this: Chapter 1 begins in the interlude between Chapters 14 and 15 of Blind Memory (you might want to read that first, if you haven't, otherwise this is not going to make any sense). It is Tuesday, September 21, 2004. Chapter 14 of Blind Memory begins at about 1:30 in the afternoon, and Chapter 15 takes place around 6pm. Chapter 1 of The Edge of Darkness begins about half an hour prior to that. The story as it unfolds overlaps Chapter 15 and will eventually (at some point, I haven't quite gotten there yet, but I know it's coming) continue past where Chapter 15 ends.

Sorry for the confusion. But as one of my favorite authors says, "The author always reserves the right to have a Better Idea". I really do think it will be better this way. Thanks for hanging in there with me!

* * *

secure yourself to heaven  
hold on tight, the night has come

"Secure Yourself", Indigo Girls

* * *

"Hey, I'm back," Calleigh said, breezing into the layout room where she expected to find Tim. "Tim?" she asked, frowning as she encountered the empty room. "Huh."

She glanced down at her watch. 5:35. Tim only had 25 minutes before he'd get kicked out for the day. She'd expected to find him working furiously and was surprised that he wasn't. "Well, all right then," she muttered as she turned around to head down the hall towards the office they shared. Maybe he was in there.

The office was also empty, but can of soda and open files on Tim's desk told her he hadn't gone home for the day yet. "Hmmm," she said, tapping her lip. She walked back to the layout room to see if he'd just stepped out of the room and she'd missed him. No Tim, but plenty of evidence that he'd been working in there. She idly picked up a piece of paper covered in his most careless handwriting and squinted at it, trying to decipher it. He had obviously been in the middle of something, because otherwise he would have made a legible copy for the file. He always left legible notes, just in case. They all did. Shaking her head at the mystery paper, she walked up to the lounge.

The lounge was empty except for Valera, who was staring at the microwave as it cooked her dinner. "Hey, Valera, have you seen Speed?" she asked.

Valera looked up, surprised. "No, not all afternoon," she said, after a moment of thought.

"Ok, thanks," Calleigh said. Well, that wasn't necessarily surprising, she thought. If Tim had been holed up in the layout room all afternoon, like it appeared he had, then it was fairly likely no one had seen him. But if he'd left the building, then Horatio would have had to known he'd gone, she realized. She nodded to herself as she walked up the stairs to Horatio's office.

He wasn't there, but she caught sight of him walking down the hall from the opposite direction with a look on his face that told her he'd been in a meeting that had lasted entirely too long. "Hey," she said.

"Hi," he said, quirking an eyebrow at her as he walked towards his office where she was standing. "What's up?"

"Have you seen Tim?" she asked. "I thought he'd be downstairs, but he's nowhere to be found."

"You mean they're not back yet?" Horatio asked, pausing as he unlocked his office door.

Calleigh shook her head. "Back from where?"

"Speed and Eric went to go check on a possible lead. Damnit, I told him to call if they were going to be out for more than two hours," Horatio sighed.

"Did you tell them both that, or just Tim?" Calleigh asked as she followed him into his office. "I know Tim promised to try and behave, but he's really not known for keeping good track of time when he gets involved in something…"

"They were both standing right here," Horatio said, pulling out his cell phone. "No messages," he sighed. He dialed a number and listened for a moment. "He's not picking up," he said, hitting a button and dialing another number. "Neither is Eric," he said after another moment.

Calleigh frowned. "Ok, Tim not picking up I can almost see, but not Eric."

"No," Horatio agreed. "I don't like this."

"Do you know where they went?" she asked.

"Not entirely. North of the city, across town. I should have asked for the address," he sighed.

"Maybe it's downstairs. He has papers all over the table down there, it's probably in one of those," she said, turning to lead the way back down to the layout room.

They both shuffled through the papers on the table, trying to figure out Tim's sense of order. "This looks like a list he was working on yesterday," Calleigh said, plucking a sheet torn off of a legal pad from the top of a pile.

"This might be it," Horatio said, picking up another sheet, "But I don't know if I can read it."

"Well, let's see," Calleigh said. They compared the two pages. "I think this is the legible copy of that one," she said.

"Probably. Let's see…" Horatio ran his finger down the page. "Here we go, I wonder if this is it," he said, pointing to an entry towards the bottom of his page that was starred.

Calleigh looked over her sheet until she found something towards the middle that looked similar. "Up past the airport?" she asked.

"Looks it. Near the turnpike," he said, nodding. "All right, I'm going to go check this out."

"Want me to come?" she asked.

"No, stay here in case one of them checks in. I'll tell Pamela to route calls to you. Just in case something happened to the phones," he said.

Calleigh didn't think that was terribly likely, but she nodded anyway. "All right. I'll stay here."

"Good. Keep looking through this stuff, in case we've got the wrong address. I'll call you when I get out there," he said.

"Right." She watched him leave the layout room before turning back to the papers.

She'd been sorting through things for about 20 minutes when Yelena poked her head into the room. "Calleigh, do you know where Horatio is?"

She looked up. "He went out to check on something Tim and Eric were doing. Why?" she asked.

Yelena walked into the room and seemed to steel herself. "Dispatch just got a screamer page from Tim's pager a few minutes ago," she said slowly.

Calleigh leaned heavily against the table. "Have they traced it?" she asked, worriedly.

"They have an address north of the city, near the airport. Is that where Horatio thought they would be?" Yelena asked.

Calleigh nodded, relaxing slight. Horatio would be nearly there, then. "That's where we thought they were, yes. Do we know anything?"

Yelena shook her head. "I'm sorry, no, not yet. Dispatch tried to raise their radio, and they tried to raise John Hagen's radio as well, but didn't get a response from either."

"Horatio couldn't get Tim or Eric on their cell phones," Calleigh said, closing her eyes. "Oh, God."

Yelena reached out and gripped her arm. "Calleigh, someone had to be well enough to use the emergency button on the pager. It might yet be all right."

"You're right. We should call Horatio and let him know he's headed the right way," she said, slowly.

"I called Frank already; he was working up that way," Yelena said.

"Ok, good. Would you call Horatio, please," Calleigh asked, standing up. "I have to go tell Alexx what's going on. She's…Tim is her responsibility," she explained.

Yelena nodded. "I will call Horatio. You get Alexx."

"Right," Calleigh said, firmly. It might yet be all right. But she didn't think so.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

* * *

This is a city for not sleeping, the clocks are set by feel  
at this moment from where I sit, none of it seems real 

Pachuca Sunrise, Minus the Bear

* * *

Horatio sped north, with lights and sirens. He did not feel at all good about this. The uneasiness he'd felt when Speed appeared in his office seemed now to be justified. To be fair, however, everything having to do with Speed made him uneasy lately. He was very afraid for his colleague, his friend, very afraid he was going to lose him. 

His cell phone rang, startling him. "Caine," he said, tensely.

"Horatio? It's me." Yelena's voice was usually a welcome distraction, but not today.

"Yelena, I'm in the middle…" he started, but she interrupted him.

"I know. I'm calling to tell you that dispatch is sending ambulances and backup to the warehouse. We received a screamer page from Tim's pager," she explained. "Frank was up that way and he is also on his way over there."

"Shit," he swore.

"Yes. Calleigh is telling Alexx now," Yelena added.

"Ok. I'm almost there," he said.

"Call when you know something, yes?" Yelena sounded very concerned. Well, she worked as closely with his team as he did, almost. And everyone knew how serious a situation would have to be for someone to use the emergency button on their pagers…

"Absolutely," he agreed, as he hung up. He could just now hear the sirens, coming up ahead.

Everything was chaos as he pulled up to the warehouse. He stepped out of the Hummer and took a moment to look around. A pair of EMTs was rolling someone into the ambulance; the quick glance he had of the patient suggested that it might be John Hagen. Horatio took a deep breath and started towards the fray when his attention was caught by a familiar voice.

"Need H…g'tta ell H."

Something sounded horribly wrong to Horatio as he spun around and saw Speed fighting with the EMT. _Oh, God_, he thought as he caught sight of his friend. Speed looked like he was covered in blood from head to toe.

"Speed! I'm here, I'm here, it's all right. Calm down, let them help," he called as he ran towards the gurney. "It's all right."

"Na! Not. G'tta…" Speed reached out and grabbed Horatio's arm. His hands were sticky and hot with blood and Horatio had to swallow hard as he moved closer to calm Speed.

"I've got you buddy," Horatio said. "I've got you." He had him, but the sight was horrifying. There was so much blood he couldn't tell how badly Speed was hurt, but it was fairly obvious that at the least his jaw was badly broken in some manner and that he had a deep gash across the side of his face.

"G'tta ell ou," Speed's voice was garbled and muffled and made the sick sensation in Horatio's stomach worsen.

"Tell me what?" Horatio said.

"Lue t'too. 'ad a lue t'too."

Horatio's mind whirled as he tried to decipher Speed's words. "He had a blue tattoo?"

"Ah," Tim said, nodding.

"Ok, buddy, I got it. Rest, ok? Let them help you," _If they can,_ he thought. He was hoping that at least some of this blood did not belong to Speed, but that seemed by no means certain at the moment.

"Ait! E'ic idn't know…idn't know," Speed said frantically, squeezing Horatio's arm almost painfully in his insistence.

"Eric didn't know?" Horatio asked, to clarify. Dread filled his chest. Whatever this was, it was not good.

"Ah. Idn't know," Speed mumbled as he passed out. It was as though he'd held on long enough to give Horatio the information, but as soon as the urgency stopped driving him, he was gone.

"Speed?" Horatio said, concerned. _Don't die on me. _

"I drugged him," the ENT explained, gently pushing Speed's hands away from Horatio. "He might have lost a lot of blood but his vitals are fairly good," she continued.

"He'll be ok?" Horatio asked, half relieved.

"Too soon to tell for sure, but he's a fighter," she said. "We're taking them to Jackson."

"All right, thank you," Horatio said, vaguely, as he watched them roll Speed towards a waiting ambulance.

"Horatio," a voice behind him said. He turned and saw Frank Tripp standing there, a grim expression on his face.

"Frank," he said, warily.

"You're going to want…you need to see this," Frank said, slowly.

Horatio realized at that moment that he did not see Eric anywhere. _Eric didn't know_.

"Yeah," he said, "All right."

He followed Frank into the warehouse, careful to step around the blood trail he saw by the doorway. A large pool of blood nearby caught his eye. He didn't think it was possible for his stomach to tighten further, but it did. Frank led him silently towards a body covered in a wrap. Horatio took a deep breath and bent down to pull the wrap back from the head of the body. "Oh. Oh, Eric," he breathed. It was a shock, even though he was not completely surprised.

"It looks like he was shot in the back of the head," Frank said, tonelessly.

Horatio closed his eyes. _Eric didn't know_. An ambush, perhaps. How long? How long had they been here without help? He rose to his feet unsteadily. The blood on his hands caught his eye as he went to run a hand through his hair and he shuddered involuntarily. Rolling up his shirt sleeves to hide the blood, he turned to Frank and asked, "Hagen?"

"On his way to the hospital. He was unconscious, and, well…the EMTs were not optimistic. Speed was the only one standing," Frank said, as he handed Horatio a wet-nap packet. Horatio nodded his thanks and cleaned the worst of the blood off his hands before digging a pair of gloves out of his pocket. "There's something else you ought to see," Tripp said.

"What?" Horatio asked, as he followed Tripp away from Eric's body. There was another body wrapped about 50 feet away.

"They got one of them, at least," Frank said, pulling the wrap away from the body.

"Did they now," Horatio breathed. "Does he have a blue tattoo that you can see?" he asked.

Frank frowned up at him. "I don't see one, no. Why?"

Horatio shook his head. "One of the things Speed said was that there was a guy with a blue tattoo."

"There would have had to be more than one of them," Frank pointed out.

Horatio nodded. He looked back towards the blood on the floor. "The trail doesn't come out this way," he noticed.

"Does that mean something?" Frank asked.

"Maybe," Horatio shrugged. "Maybe not. It depends on who made that trail." He looked around. There was another, somewhat smaller, pool of blood near Eric. He cocked his head as he walked around to examine it. Some of the blood had pooled, but there were two handprints and a splatter of blood between them as well. "This was probably Speed," he said, indicating the splatter.

"Hm?" Tripp said, glancing down. "What makes you say that?"

"There's a bit less blood here, and the blood trail starts from here, it seems," Horatio said, his eyes skipping across the floor of the warehouse. "And I don't think those handprints are big enough to be Hagen's. Speed is smaller. This also looks like someone was spitting blood, and Speed's mouth was...injured." Smashed in, more like.

"Oh," Tripp said. "Why isn't there any blood by Delko, then?" he asked.

Horatio shook his head. "He would have been able to see the gunshot wound from here." Speed was well aware of what a fatal gunshot wound to the head looked like, Horatio knew. "There wasn't any need to check Eric." And probably no desire, either.

"But he wouldn't have been able to see Hagen," Frank said nodding.

"Right," Horatio said. He followed the trail across the floor to the larger pool of blood. "He rolled up onto his knees, and then managed to get over here," he said absently. "Then it looks like he went towards the door, and then back. Checking the scene, most likely."

"Then why isn't there blood by the other body?" Frank asked.

Horatio frowned, thinking. "Most likely, he wasn't thinking clearly enough to check more than the immediate area. Speed…is not a cop, in the same way that you and I are," he said, slowly. "His priority was probably more to keep Hagen alive than to secure the scene. Hagen would have checked everything, but Speed's not as trained on how to do that."

Frank nodded. "That's not his job."

"Right," Horatio said. He thought a moment. If Speed had been the one to shoot the other man, he might have avoided going over there as well. To the best of Horatio's knowledge, Speed had never shot anyone before.

He stared down at the blood. There was quite a lot of it; Hagen had obviously been severely wounded. But how long? How long had they been out here? And why hadn't Speed called for help earlier, if Hagen hadn't been in condition to do it? _Because he was unconscious, probably_, he realized suddenly. If Speed had been unconscious for some unspecified time…yes, that would make sense. He ignored the voices he heard behind him and bent down to examine what looked like a bullet hole in the wall near the blood pool.

"Horatio," a voice said, insistently, as though the speaker had been trying to get his attention.

He looked up, blinking. Manny Perez, the night shift lieutenant was standing next to him. He stood up unsteadily and said, "Manny."

"Horatio, you can't work this scene. You really can't," Manny said.

"I can. I'm fine," Horatio said, brushing Manny's concern away.

"No, Horatio, you are not, but the reason you can't work the scene is because IAB is on their way. They won't let you stay. It would be better for you to go before they get here," Manny said.

"Stetler is on the way, Horatio," Frank said, confirming this. "You really shouldn't be here at all."

"I am responsible for my team," Horatio began, but Manny shook his head.

"Horatio, the responsible thing would be to go. You can't do any more for Delko, and you've got the Kid on his way to the hospital all beat to hell. You've got to go take care of him. We'll take care of Delko, we'll make sure you're in the loop, but you've got to get out of here and take care of the rest of the team," he said.

Horatio stopped, closing his eyes. No one had called Speed "the Kid" in years, but the mention of the old nickname brought a flash of memory of Speed when he was very young and always scared. When had the fear gone away, he wondered. Or had it? He blinked and took a deep breath. "His...Speed's gun was clean. I watched him clean it not two days ago. You make sure…just make sure," he said.

"We will." Frank nodded. They may not know why it was important, but Horatio could see that they understood.

"All right. Call me," he said, sighing.

"We will," Manny said.

Horatio nodded and walked out to his truck. He climbed into the driver's seat and rested his head on the steering wheel for a long moment. Eventually, he sat up and started the car. He had work to do.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

* * *

Hold on  
Hold on to yourself  
For this is gonna hurt like hell

- "Hold On", Sarah McLachlan

* * *

Calleigh rushed down the hallway of the hospital hot on Alexx's heels. No one had given them details, just told them to come to Jackson Memorial as soon as they could possibly get there. Her stomach was cold at the possibilities. They found Horatio sitting on a bench in a corner of the waiting room, staring at his hands. Calleigh sat down next to him, noting that his shirt sleeves were rolled up past his elbows. She swallowed hard as she noticed the traces of blood still on his hands. He didn't even look up at them.

Alexx had sat down on the bench across from them. "Tell us, honey," she said, gently.

Calleigh bit her lip. She'd never seen Horatio look so…small. He blinked up at them and said softly, "There's not much that's good."

"Tell us the worst, first, then," Alexx said, reaching out to touch his hands.

"Eric…he's gone. Bullet wound to the head. I…think it happened too quickly for him to know," Horatio stumbled over the words, which would have worried Calleigh if she'd been able to pay attention anymore. Her eyes closed.

"What else?" she asked after a moment, opening her eyes to look at him.

"John Hagen also died," Horatio replied, not quite looking at her. "He was shot in the stomach, and just lost too much blood. They pronounced him dead on arrival."

"Oh," she said, in a small voice, not knowing how to feel about the news. She and Hagen hadn't been together for some weeks now, but even still.

"What about Timmy?" Alexx asked, tensely.

Horatio sighed, looking back at his hands. "They're trying to stabilize him for surgery. His jaw is…broken, I guess. And there might be some internal bleeding, they said. They're not saying he won't make it, but they don't seem too certain, either."

They sat silently for a long moment. No one seemed to know what to say to that bit of news. Horatio pulled himself upright with some effort. "I need to go back to the lab. Yelena was bringing Eric's parents there. I have to go tell them."

Calleigh nodded, blinking back tears. "Has anyone called New York?" she asked.

He nodded. "I did that already, after calling you."

"Good," she said, softly. "Are his parents coming?"

"I think so," Horatio said. "I told them where the hospital was and said that they could call me if they needed to."

She nodded. "Ok."

Horatio looked like he was about to say something else when a man in scrubs approached them. "Are you here for Tim Speedle?"

"Yes," they said, all tensing for news.

"I'm Evan Walker; I've been working on Mr. Speedle. We've got him stabilized and we'll be moving him up to surgery very soon. We're just waiting on the surgeons to be ready for him," he explained.

"He's stable?" Calleigh asked.

"Yes, his vitals are recovering nicely, now that we've gotten some blood into him. He's not entirely out of the woods yet- a lot can happen in surgery- but right now, he's as stable as he's going to get. I can't say that it looks good, exactly, yet, but it doesn't look bad, either," the doctor replied.

"Can we process him before he goes up to surgery?" Horatio asked.

"Process how?" Walker asked, cautiously.

"Photographs, trace evidence, that sort of thing," Horatio explained.

Walker frowned a moment, thinking. "Photographs would be all right, I guess. You really can't do anything else, though. Nothing like, fingerprint dusting or anything. Nothing that could get into the wounds."

"Photographs, at the least," Horatio said. "Everything helps."

"I understand. I can let one of you come back to take photographs, if you need to," he said.

Horatio turned to Calleigh. "Can you…would you do the photographs. I don't want to keep Eric's family waiting…"

She hesitated. "Do you really think this is necessary? Right now?" She could hardly think about a case right now. Everything was whirling around faster than she could keep her hands on. Evidence was the last thing on her mind.

"Calleigh, it might be all we have. We can't do it after the surgery, the evidence won't be there," he said.

"I know, but…we're not supposed to be working this, are we? I'd think that would taint the evidence," she said. It wasn't that she didn't want to do her job. But she wasn't sure she wanted to see Tim injured, either.

"There's not time to get someone else here to do it, Calleigh. You weren't at the scene, that should be good enough. Please, Calleigh, just do this." She was taken aback by the pleading note in his voice. Horatio never sounded like this.

"Ok" she said, in a small voice. "I will".

He reached out and touched her shoulder. "Thank you," he whispered, before turning away to walk down the hall.

Calleigh took a deep breath and turned towards the doctor. "Do you have a camera anywhere here? I don't have my kit with me."

"We do, actually. We need to document abuse sometimes. I can let you use it," he said, nodding. "Come on back."

She followed him through the doors to the main part of the emergency department. He found a digital camera and handed it to her. "Thanks," she said.

"No problem. Your friend is this way," he said, leading her down a short hallway. He stopped outside a door and turned towards her. "I should warn you, before we go in here. Your friend…might not look like he should to you. There aren't a lot of tubes and machines, but he's sustained a very serious facial injury, and his face is somewhat distorted. He's been sedated so he can't do any more damage to his jaw, so he's not conscious at the moment. I just didn't want you to be taken completely by surprise."

Calleigh nodded. "Can he hear us, do you think?"

"Well, the jury is sort of out on that one. I'd say, that yes, he can probably hear us, but he's probably not processing it. He probably doesn't understand what we're saying, exactly," he explained.

"Ok," Calleigh said, taking a deep breath. "I'm ready."

The doctor nodded and opened the door. Even though she'd just been told that Tim would look bad, her breath still caught in her throat at her first sight of him. Half of his jaw looked like it had collapsed in on itself, and the rest of his face looked nearly black with bruises. What wasn't bruised was deathly pale. Calleigh closed her eyes a moment to steady herself, then looked at him again. "Hi, Tim," she said, quietly. "It's me. I'm just going to take some pictures, ok?" She raised the camera with shaky hands and started taking pictures of the damage to his face, walking around the bed to get several angles.

"Here, you should probably get this, too," the doctor said, as she finished. He pulled down Tim's gown to reveal some severe bruising on his chest. "It's a good deal he had a vest on, from the looks of this," he said.

Calleigh swallowed hard at the familiar looking bruise. It was in almost the same place that Tim had been bruised after Dispo Day. She took several photographs of it, before looking up at the doctor. "Is there anything else?" she asked.

"There's a bruise along his hip, but that looks older," the doctor said, tugging the gown up to reveal a yellowing bruise along Tim's hipbone.

Calleigh nodded in agreement, wincing as how pronounced his hips were. "Yeah, I think that's older." She wondered how he'd gotten that one, and hoped it wasn't from falling off of his bike when he'd been exhausted before.

"That's it, then. He's not bruising across his abdomen, yet. Those won't rise for a couple of days, probably," the doctor said.

"Right," Calleigh nodded. She watched as the doctor covered Tim back up. On impulse, she reached out and touched Tim's foot. "We're here, Tim. They're going to take care of you. It's…" she choked on the words all right. "We're here, honey," she said, lamely. She turned away, abruptly walking out the door before the threatened tears could fall. It would be a long night, she knew.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

* * *

AN: this is the first chapter that had not been part of All These Things (see Chapter 1 AN). Again, I am sorry for the confusion...

* * *

Hold on  
Hold on  
We're on  
Our way

I'm not falling apart

"Not Falling Apart", Maroon 5

* * *

Horatio squared his shoulders and took a deep breath before walking into the room where Yelena sat with Eric's parents. He really did hate telling people their loved one was gone. This, though, this was harder than almost anything. It was even harder than telling Yelena that Ray was dead. He'd been so numb that he hadn't been feeling anything that day. He wasn't numb now. Now, he was reeling with pain. His hands were unsteady as he sat down across from Mrs. Delko.

"Mr. and Mrs. Delko, I have some…difficult news," he began softly.

Eric's mother looked up at him, her eyes already read. "My son, he's dead, isn't he?" she asked.

Horatio blinked, taken aback. "Yes, I'm afraid so," he said finally. "How did you…"

"There's precious little else that would make someone bring us here to wait," Mr. Delko interrupted. "If he'd been injured, they'd have sent us to the hospital, no?"

Yelena nodded. "Yes, we would have."

"So then," Mr. Delko nodded, his arm around his wife.

"Was it…did he…did my boy suffer?" Mrs. Delko asked, hesitantly, as though she was afraid of the answer.

"No," Horatio said, with certainty in his voice. "Eric didn't suffer. It was very fast. He probably didn't even know it was happening," he explained,

"A blessing, then," she whispered, as her husband tightened his arm around her. "Can we…is it possible to see him?"

Horatio sent a questioning look at Yelena who nodded. "I think that could be arranged, if you like. It would be down in the medical examiner's lab, though, and he wouldn't be…cleaned up, perhaps," he warned.

"That is okay," Mr. Delko said. "We just want to see him."

"I will go see what we can do, then," Horatio said, nodding. "Please know, I am so very sorry."

"Thank you," Mrs. Delko whispered.

Horatio nodded and left the room. He went down to the morgue, and found one of Alexx's collegues standing over Eric's body. "Mark."

"Lieutenant Caine. I'm so sorry," Mark Hingle said, turning to greet him.

"Me too," Horatio said, his lips tightening as he looked down at Eric. "His parents would like to see him," he said finally. "Can you…"

"Of course," Mark replied. "Give me ten minutes, I'll get him presentable. I'm not even sure we really even need an autopsy here, but it's procedure."

"Yes," Horatio said, shortly. "I'll bring them down." He turned away and walked back upstairs to the room where the Delkos sat.

The hardest thing in the world, he thought later, was watching someone see death. The Delkos had handled seeing Eric as well as anyone could. He'd assured them that the body would be released in the morning and asked them to let him know if there was anything he could do. They'd gone blinking out into the sunset, leaving him alone in the cool darkness of the lab. Yelena was leaning against a wall, watching him. "Horatio," she said, tentatively.

"I'm fine," he said, automatically.

"You should sit," she said.

"I'm fine," he repeated, staring at the window.

She was silent, but he could feel her eyes on him. "Should I leave you alone?" she asked finally.

He nodded. "Please."

"All right," she said.

"I'm sorry," he said, turning towards her, "It's just…"

"It is all right," she said. "Just know that if I can help, I will."

"I know. Can you maybe check on Frank, see if anything's come up yet?" he asked.

"Of course," she said.

He watched her leave, walking deeper into the lab. His hands still shook. He looked down at them, trying to will them to be still. He had to be strong yet. There was still work to be done. The traces of Tim's blood caught his eye and he shuddered. It was all he could do to get to the men's room before nausea overtook him.

He sat back on his heels, wiping his mouth with a bit of toilet paper. Taking a few shaky deep breaths, he closed his eyes and rocked up to his feet, leaning on the side of the stall. No one was in the bathroom, thankfully. He flushed and went to the sink, where he washed his still shaking hands. The blood was still there, around his nails. He scrubbed his hands almost raw with the harsh soap, his breath catching in the back of his throat. His hands were red and almost scalded when he finally felt clean enough to turn off the water. He held on to the sink, shaking and weak-kneed, looking up to see his face in the mirror. His face was pale, and his eyes and cheeks were red and blotchy from the effort of not crying. His breath was shallow as he tried to pull himself together. Time passed unheeded, before he took a deep shaky breath and straightened. He splashed cool water on his face, wincing at the feel of the coldness on his hands. His face looked a bit better now, he decided, examining his reflection again. His chin jerked up defiantly. There was still work to do. He'd best be about it already.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

* * *

AN: If you're confused about who Marianne is, exactly, you'll find out more in a previous story called "Abandoned Children"

* * *

The hardest part is waiting here  
Waiting to collide 

-"Burn Away", Foo Fighters

* * *

Calleigh was sitting alone in the surgical waiting room staring at the television without seeing it. Horatio was still at the lab, presumably, and Alexx had gone downstairs to find some food and call home. She was left there to wait. And think, or not think, as the case might be. Her mind had gone mostly blank by this point. Too much pain to process. Some small corner of her mind felt guilty that she had been in court all day. If she'd been at the warehouse, how would things be different? She was easily a better shot than either Tim or Eric, and probably even better than John. Would that have made a difference? Would it have prevented even a small bit of tragedy? 

"…and I'm here for a Tim Speedle?" A voice she didn't recognize penetrated through the fog of her thoughts and she looked up, blinking. There was a woman standing at the volunteer desk. She had missed the woman's name, but Tim's name had brought her back to herself. She watched as the volunteer apologized for being unable to give any information about a patient unless the person was on the approved list.

"Right, of course," the woman said, sounding resigned. Calleigh watched as she turned to walk towards the water cooler that was next to the television. She was about average height, and thin, with dark curly hair that looked like it had been done up at the beginning of the day, but by now was unruly and scattered. The expression on her face was a combination of anxiety and resignation that Calleigh found oddly familiar.

"Excuse me," Calleigh said, coming to a conclusion. The woman turned, eyebrows raised, and Calleigh became even more certain. "You wouldn't happen to be Marianne, would you?"

The woman blinked, surprised. "Yes, I would, can I ask…?" she said, hesitantly.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm Calleigh Duquesne," Calleigh said, rising to hold out her hand.

"Of course you are," Marianne said smiling slightly. "Tim's told me quite a bit about you."

"He has?" Calleigh asked, slightly incredulous.

"Well, a lot by Tim's standards. So, no, not really very much," Marianne admitted. "But yes, I'm Marianne Reiner. I'm Tim's aunt."

Calleigh shook her head without thinking. "No, you're not. You're his mother."

Marianne sat down on the couch across from where Calleigh had been sitting. "He…Tim told you that?" she asked.

"Yes, he did. It sort of came up," Calleigh said, sitting back down. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't presume…"

"No, no, it's fine, really. I just…I didn't know Tim had really ever told anyone about me, exactly. When he was small, it was just easier to say I was his aunt. I mean, he always knew the difference, but, well, it was less confusing for other people, and meant he didn't have to explain. He…doesn't like to explain," she said, smiling slightly.

"No, he doesn't," Calleigh agreed.

Marianne chuckled, but grew serious. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be…but do you know what's going on? I know next to nothing…"

"Oh, of course, I'm so sorry!" Calleigh exclaimed. "Tim's in surgery. His jaw is very badly broken and there was some internal bleeding. Not much, and the trauma surgeon didn't seem very concerned about it, since he was fairly stable. They told us that it was basically going to be two surgeries- the trauma surgeon would take care of the bleeding and then the oral surgeon would take care of his jaw. They said that when the first surgery was over, they'd come update us, but that it was likely he'd be in surgery most of the night. His jaw is going to need some pretty extensive work, and it's going to take awhile."

"Is he going to be all right? Have they said anything?" Marianne asked.

"They're being cautious. The emergency department doctor told me that he wasn't out of the woods yet, but things didn't necessarily look bad, either," she explained.

"Well, that's something, at least. What happened, do we even know yet? Danny- that's Tim's dad- just told me that there'd been an incident and Tim was badly hurt. I don't know if he knew more or not," Marianne said.

"I know a little bit, but not very much," Calleigh admitted. "We're waiting on updates right now. But apparently, Tim, along with two other detectives, went out to an abandoned warehouse to check on a lead, and they were attacked. That's really all I know for certain. I'm hoping that when our boss, Horatio, comes back from the lab, he'll know more."

"What happened to the two other detectives?" Marianne asked.

Calleigh took a deep breath to steady herself before answering. "They…neither of them survived."

Marianne's eyes widened, slightly. "I'm so sorry," she said, quickly. "They were friends?"

"Yes. One of them, Eric, is…was…a CSI. He and Tim were friends, and he was one of my closest friends. The other was a Homicide detective who was also a good friend of mine." The words felt awkward and odd in Calleigh's mouth. It was so hard to think of Eric and John in the past tense.

"I'm so sorry," Marianne said again. "Eric and Tim were friends?" she asked to confirm.

Calleigh nodded. "We're all…the team, Horatio, Tim, Alexx, Eric and I…we're all fairly close."

"Oh my boy, you were just destined to always come full circle, weren't you," Marianne said softly, looking up at the ceiling.

Calleigh looked at her quizzically. "I'm sorry?"

"No, it's nothing really," Marianne said, shaking her head.

"Ok," Calleigh said. "You mentioned Tim's dad, is he coming?"

"Yes, he and Tim's mom, Melissa are both coming. They called me because I'm in Atlanta and I could get here faster. When I talked to them last, right before I boarded the plane, they were still trying to find the fastest way of getting here. There weren't any direct flights from Syracuse, so they were trying to find one with the shortest layover time, and get things settled for Tim's younger brother, Matt, because he can't really come. He's got the SATs or the ACTs or something like that this weekend, and there's something else going on, team training or something, I don't know," she said.

"Ah," Calleigh said, nodding. "I didn't know you were in Atlanta…actually, I didn't know for sure if anyone was coming, or anything, or I'd have put your names down on the approved list, I'm sorry."

"No, no, it's fine. I don't expect Tim's told you much at all, so it's reasonable to expect that you wouldn't necessarily know. It's a lucky thing I was in Atlanta- I was in a short breather between trips. I just got back from Singapore on Saturday, and I'm scheduled to go to New York next week, but I told them we might have to postpone it. And it's lucky that Danny caught me while I was still at work, because I could just call the travel department and tell them I needed to be on a plane to Miami and they could make the arrangements and get me to the airport. Sometime it helps to work for a multi-national financial company," she said, wryly.

"I can imagine," Calleigh said. "I wonder where Alexx is?" she added, after a moment.

"I'm right here, baby," Alexx said, coming up behind them. "It's good to see you, Marianne. I'm sorry I didn't call, but I didn't know if you were in the States or not," she said.

"You know each other?" Calleigh asked, confused.

"We met a long time ago," Marianne said, with a small smile. "Anyway, it's fine, Alexx. Tim can't keep my schedule in his head, so I wouldn't expect anyone else to. I'm always getting calls from him at 3AM because he thinks I'm in Singapore or the Philippines, when I'm really in Atlanta or New York. I think he decided that 3AM was just the best time to call me because it's a good time if I _am_ overseas, so he just always calls then."

"He does these sorts of things," Alexx agreed.

"Yeah. I don't mind, really, because it's never for no reason, even if he says he's just calling to call," she sighed. Calleigh agreed, inwardly.

"Oh, I know," Alexx said. "Anyway, here," she said, handing sandwiches to both Marianne and Calleigh. "Eat."

"What about you?" Calleigh asked.

"I ate while I was talking to the kids," she said. "I only brought two sandwiches up because I thought Horatio might be here by now."

Calleigh shook her head. "I don't know where he is. I'm hoping he's not here because Frank called him or something."

Alexx nodded. "Me too. He'll come as soon as he can," she said, soothingly.

"I know," Calleigh said. "I just…I'd just rather we were all here." The waiting was becoming painful. And she was worried about Horatio.

"I'm sure we'll all be here by the time Tim wakes up," Marianne said. "It's going to be awhile, you said."

"Oh, I know," Calleigh said. "I just want this all to be over," she admitted.

"We all do, baby," Alexx said. "We all do."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

* * *

I wish I had a lotta answers  
'Cause that's the way it should be  
For all these questions  
Being directed at me

"Box Full of Letters," Wilco

* * *

It was late, now. Horatio led Tim's parents down to the surgical waiting room. They'd finally gotten in on an 11pm flight. He had been the logical choice to pick them up from the airport, since he hadn't been at the hospital. And besides, he was responsible for Speed, anyway.

He had spent hours at the lab doing what should have taken him half the time. He'd put Eric's current case to rights, eventually, but his concentration was shot all to hell, and he kept forgetting what it was he had been doing. He then tried to deal with some paperwork that had been on his critical list for the day, but kept spacing out in front of the computer screen. When Calleigh had finally called to find out where the hell he was, he'd been surprised at how late it was and how long he'd been at the lab. She'd been half frantic on the phone with him, and he'd felt even worse. The last thing he had intended was to make things worse for her. She'd told him he could pick up Tim's parents by way of apology, so he did, despite the awkwardness. He knew nothing about Speed's parents; not even their names or where they lived, and had been half surprised to discover they were from Syracuse. Speed had never mentioned to him where he had grown up.

They reached the waiting room, finally, and discovered that Calleigh, Alexx and another woman were the only people waiting. "There you are," Alexx said, sounding slightly relieved.

"I'm sorry," he said, genuinely contrite.

"It's no matter," Alexx said, brushing off his apology. Calleigh's eyes gave lie to this, but he said nothing, only sat down next to her.

"Thank God, you're here," the other woman said to Danny and Melissa. Horatio glanced at Calleigh, confused.

"She's Marianne, Tim's mother," Calleigh said softly, as Danny and Melissa were quickly drawn into an explanation of what was happening.

"I don't understand," Horatio said, shaking his head. He'd thought the woman he'd just spent the last half hour or so with was Speed's mother.

"The short version is that Melissa is actually Tim's stepmother, despite the fact that he refers to her as his mom. It's complicated, and right now is probably not the time…" Calleigh explained.

"No, of course not," Horatio agreed. Layers upon layers and all the things he didn't know. "What's happening?" he asked, after a moment.

"Well, they finished the first surgery around 8:30 or so, not too long after Marianne got here," Calleigh sighed. "The internal bleeding turned out to be a bit more than they had anticipated, and they wound up removing his spleen because it was damaged. The trauma surgeon said it wasn't really a big deal- you can live without a spleen just fine, he's just going to be on antibiotics for a while and he's going to have to be careful about infection, but it shouldn't really be a problem once he recovers. The jaw, however, is more extensive and it's going to probably be at least another hour, maybe more. They have to rebuild part of it, from the sounds of things."

"Oh," Horatio said, lamely. He didn't know what to say. None of it seemed like it was happening, it was all vague and distant, and it felt like the only thing that he could focus on was the crushing weight of everything on his head. He wondered, distantly, if this was how Speed had felt last week. Like everything was coming crashing down upon him and shattering him to pieces. It was not a pleasant feeling. If Tim had felt this bad, Horatio was impressed at just how well he _had_ been functioning, despite it all. He suspected Speed had felt worse, even, and he had no idea how Speed had even been upright, let alone working.

Calleigh leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She looked exhausted, but almost relieved, too. Her small hand reached out to rest on the back of his hand, which was resting on his knee. It felt like a lifeline, almost, and he turned his hand over to grasp hers. She opened her eyes, but didn't pull her hand away.

Everyone was tired and after the first flurry of conversation subsided, it was quiet. The volunteers had long since left, and they were alone in the room, just waiting for word. Horatio closed his eyes, still trying to pull himself together. He didn't think anyone else really knew how badly he felt, except perhaps Calleigh, which was comforting.

He was startled by Frank's arrival to the waiting room and was surprised to discover that he'd dozed off.

"Frank," he said, blinking.

"How's it coming?" Frank asked, sitting down on a nearby chair after having been introduced to Tim's family.

Calleigh repeated the litany of Speed's injuries. Her voice was steady, but her hand tightened where it still held Horatio's.

"What do you know?" Horatio asked, after Frank had a moment to digest the extent of everything.

"Not enough," the detective replied, shaking his head. "Manny has some speculation, but not enough to do much with. None of it is going to be worth anything if Speed can't tell us anything about what happened, it looks like."

"What does Manny think?" Calleigh asked.

Frank sighed slightly. "Well, what we're the most sure of is that someone, presumably Speed and Delko, drove the truck around the perimeter of the building. There were tracks in some soft ground along one side. Manny suspects that the perps were alerted by this, somehow, and had time to stage an ambush. It's pretty clear that Delko was hit first and also that he died immediately. It's less clear what happened after that. There were shoe prints, but everything was very muddled. There's some bullet strikes, and we found casings from at least four weapons, two of which were Speed and Hagen's service pieces. It doesn't look like there's a usable bullet in the bunch, however, although Manny admits that you might be able to do something with them that his team can't," Frank said, nodding towards Calleigh. She nodded back and Frank continued. "We're also somewhat sure that Hagen was the second casualty, since it seems he didn't move from where he'd fallen, and it seems that he was nowhere near Speed when he fell. We're guessing that if Speed was the second casualty, then Hagen would have tried to help. It does seem that Speed tried to get over to Hagen, but the prints aren't usable. At any rate, we know Speed did eventually get over there, but it seems like that happened later. We're the most unsure of how Speed got hurt, and what happened after he presumably passed out."

"I'm sorry, I don't know really anything about any of this," Tim's father, Danny, spoke up suddenly. "But how is it that the other two men were shot and Tim wasn't?"

"He was, though," Calleigh said, quietly. "He was shot in the chest, but he was wearing a Kevlar vest, and it caught the bullet." Horatio blinked. He hadn't known that at all. He was suddenly grateful for the flash of warning that had made him tell Speed and Eric to put the vests on as an afterthought.

"Like before, when he was hurt," Melissa said.

Calleigh nodded and asked, "Were Eric and John wearing vests, too?"

"Both Speed and Eric were, but Hagen wasn't," Frank replied. Calleigh nodded again.

"But why were the boys wearing Kevlar in the first place?" Alexx asked, frowning.

"I told them to," Horatio said suddenly, looking up at them all for almost the first time. Everyone stared at him. "I…I didn't like it. Something seemed...wrong about it all, somehow, and I didn't really want to let them go, but it was…it was the first real lead of the case, and Speed…he needed something. Something concrete to focus on in the case. There hadn't been anything, and he was spinning his wheels and I just…he was in the doorway, all keyed up about it, and Eric was there and volunteered to go with, and it was an afterthought, and I wasn't even half sure they'd heard me, and I didn't know that anything would come of it, it just seemed like a good idea, and, and…" he stopped, abruptly, aware that he was nearly babbling. "It didn't occur to me that Hagen might not also be wearing a vest," he said, finally.

"Not your lookout," Frank said.

"Maybe not, but still," Horatio replied. "Anyway."

"It is still odd that Tim was beaten," Calleigh pointed out. "It's obvious that's what happened."

"Yeah, we don't know. Maybe they ran out of bullets, maybe they wanted to hurt him for some reason," Frank shrugged. "That's one of the things that it would be nice if Speed could tell us, but I'm not really holding my breath on that one."

"No, I wouldn't, either," Calleigh agreed.

"Anyway, that's where things stand. I should get back," Frank said, standing up. "You'll call if something happens?" he asked.

Horatio nodded. "Yes. Let us know if anything else comes up, all right?"

"You got it," Frank replied, before turning and walking away.

Everyone was quiet a moment, digesting the information. "What happens if Tim can't tell you anything," Melissa asked finally.

"We might not find who did this," Calleigh said, grimly.

"Oh," she said, frowning.

Horatio closed his eyes to avoid seeing the pain on everyone's face. It was all too much again.

"Y'all are here for Timothy Speedle?" A voice asked, and he jerked awake again.

"Yes," came a ragged chorus of tired, tense voices as everyone turned to look at the nurse standing there.

She smiled. "He's out of surgery, in Recovery, and things look good. I'm going to send someone out to take y'all upstairs where his room is going to be in about fifteen minutes or so. He's gotta rebound a little bit more before we can let him go, but we think it won't be too much longer. His surgeon will come talk to you up there, ok?"

"He'll be ok?" Calleigh asked.

"We think so. His surgeon will tell you more. But his vitals are stable enough that we can send him up to the surgical post-op ward as opposed to intensive care, as soon as we can get him to come around for a moment or two, and that's a very, very good sign," the nurse replied, smiling.

Horatio suddenly was nearly dizzy with relief, and from the looks on the faces around him, he wasn't the only one.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

* * *

I hear the sound of the ticking of clocks  
Come back and look for me, look for me  
When I am lost 

"A Whisper", Coldplay

* * *

It was dark, raining maybe? He didn't know. Everything hurt and nothing hurt and not a bit of it made sense anymore. Anytime he tried to see something, it all tilted and spun and ached, so he stopped trying. It was easier to rest in the dark for now, but for the panicked gibberish surrounding him. It was all he could hear, like everyone was talking too fast for him to follow. 

"No, no, honey, don't touch…it's ok, baby. Don't cry." He recognized his mom, her voice echoing as he felt himself falling backward. He was crying? Well, maybe.

The falling sensation intensified as he felt spinny and sick. His thoughts swirling around…_no, you were right, you need to leave, go, leave, go, run, runawayfaraway now…_

/Oh really, now/ It was a different thought, a different voice and it suddenly made everything stand still. He was blind and deaf and mute, just standing there in that voice. But everything was calm and steady and quiet.

/Tell me. When did you first run away/

He'd been four. Four, and had just discovered that he was tall enough to reach the handle to the door to their apartment building. Daddy and Mama wouldn't stop yelling, wouldn't stop arguing. He hated it when they yelled. He'd stood in the doorway until Daddy noticed and turned and said, "Timmy, for God's sake, just go _do_ something! Quit lurking around in doorways!" And so, he went into the bedroom and buried himself in the bed, but he could still hear them. They were quiet a moment, but then started yelling again, even louder. It was scary when they yelled. Everything was scary now that Papa was sick and couldn't be at the restaurant anymore. Daddy had to do it now. He was scared, so he went and pulled his coat down from the hooks and fumbled his way into it, and opened the door to the apartment, very slowly, waiting for someone to notice and tell him to stay in the apartment, but no one did. He crept down the stairs and out the front door and stood on the stoop in the cold, before finding his way to the playground behind the church. One of the priests had found him, and brought him inside and called his parents and they'd come and gotten him. Someone must have told them not to, because they didn't yell, just looked at him tight lipped and shook their heads in exasperation. He'd gone home and they'd stopped yelling, and things started to get better, in some ways. But he never forgot how it felt to realize that he didn't have to stay when he was scared.

/And that worked out really well for you, did it/

Well, no. Not exactly. Although, it had eventually gotten him to Miami.

/You were lucky. If Sean hadn't found you, you'd probably be long dead./

He had nothing to say to that. It was probably true.

/All right then. So why run again? You won't be so lucky this time. You know too much/

This was also probably true. _I don't understand_, he thought.

/It's ok, you don't have to/

_Eric left, he's gone…_

/Yes, he is./

_But…_

/I'm not Eric/

_Then who are you?_

Laughter. Then/I'm you, of course. I'm the inside of your head/

He realized suddenly that he was talking to a voice he heard in his head. Did it make you schizophrenic to talk to voices you hear in your head? Was this what they meant when they talked about hearing voices?

More laughter. /Oh, no, Timmy. You're not schizophrenic. You're severely depressed and perhaps have a touch of an anxiety disorder, but you're not schizo. Promise. I'd know if you were./

Well, ok then, he supposed. _Is this real?_

/As real as anything is, really/

_What the hell's that suppose to mean?_

/You'll have to decide that yourself./

_But, why…_

/Why can you hear me now/

_Yeah_

/Because sometimes it works out that way. I have no answers for that./

_Well, that's a real help, you know?_

/Yeah, well, Life's a bitch sometimes. You know that./

_Humph. _

/It's time for you to go now/

_Go where?_

/Back out there./

Back out to the spinning and confusion? _No, I don't think so._

/There's no choice in the matter. Back up you go/

_But…_ he thought as things lightened and became louder _Wait, I'm not ready._

/Of course not. No one is. But it's ok, Tim. You know the way back./

_I like it here, though. It's quiet. _

/This isn't going anywhere. It's always been here. You just didn't know it./

_Can I come back?_

/Maybe. But you have to really want it. Enough, now, open your eyes./

All of a sudden, he was awake, looking around wildly. "Hey, there, it's ok."

His eyes focused on his father, who was reaching out from where he sat near the bed. He tried to talk, but his mouth was clumsy and dry. He swallowed hard around something in his throat and tried again. "…Dad"

"Yeah, it's me, Little Man. How do you feel?" his dad asked.

He shook his head slightly, then gasped as the pain crashed down on him.

"Ok, ok, It's ok, here, grab my hand, it's ok…" He felt his dad's hand around his own and held on for dear life. The next minute, there was a nurse who did something to the IV in his hand and then suddenly he could relax.

"Better?" the nurse asked. He nodded. "Ok, good. Welcome back, Mr. Speedle. Do you think you'll be sticking around for good now?"

He blinked, confused. The nurse chuckled. "It might be easier to talk if you talk through your teeth. Like this," she said, demonstrating.

"Mmm", he said. "What…?"

"You've been very sick," his dad explained. "Do you remember what happened, first?"

He thought a moment. "The warehouse?"

His dad nodded. "Right. You were attacked. The doctors had to do surgery on your jaw and on your abdomen. And then things looked good, but you spiked a high fever and wound up with a staph infection. You've been…not with us, for a couple days."

"Right," the nurse said. "Which is why I asked if you were going to stick around, this time," she smiled.

"I…think so," he said, slowly.

"Good," she said.

"Thirsty," he said.

"I'd give you something to drink, but you've got an NG tube in right now, so I can't. We didn't want you vomiting, because there's a lot of stitches in your mouth and your stomach muscles are probably pretty sore. I can let you rinse out your mouth, though, until we can see about taking the tube out," the nurse said, regretfully.

"Mmm. Whatever," he said.

"All right then, I'll go try and track down your doctor. Be careful if you want to try and sit up. You can if you want, but go slowly," she said.

"I'll keep an eye on him," his dad said. The nurse nodded and left.

"Mom?" he asked.

"Your mom is here, yes. She went to go get some sleep, she was here last night," his dad explained.

"You at my house?" he asked.

"Yeah. We thought it would be best, that way someone could deal with the menagerie," his dad replied with a smile.

"Isn't that bad," he grumbled.

"Your mom wanted to know when you turned into a crazy cat lady. I told her that was all her fault, since she's one herself."

He tried to laugh, but it hurt. "Ow."

"Sorry, I won't make you laugh," his dad apologized. "But yes, your mom, Marianne and I are staying at your house. We would have asked, but you weren't exactly in condition for us to do so."

"No, it's fine," he said. "Marianne is here?"

"She is. She's out with Calleigh right now. She has to leave tomorrow, though, so I'm very glad you woke up today," his dad said.

"Matt?" he asked.

"No, Matt stayed home. He really wanted to come, but swim team training began this week and he's taking the SATs on Saturday, so we told him to stay home. He's been calling, and he wanted me to tell you he did really want to come, and he's sorry he's not here, and he hopes you're not upset with him."

He shook his head. "God, no. It's fine."

"That's what we told him, but he was pretty freaked out. We all were, really."

"Sorry," he said, wincing. "Didn't mean to make everyone worry."

"It's not your fault, kiddo. Don't worry about it. We're just glad you're going to be all right."

"Me too," he said. "How long?"

"How long has it been?" his dad asked. He nodded. "It's Friday, so about three days."

"Mm." He thought a moment. Three days was a very long time. "Where'd you say Cal was?"

His dad hesitated. "She's out with Marianne. She said she'd be here later this afternoon."

So, Calleigh wasn't at work. That meant…oh. "Eric," he said.

It wasn't a question and his dad understood that. "Yes, honey, they're at Eric's funeral. Calleigh didn't want you to be upset, she was going to tell you tonight, when it was all over. We were pretty sure you'd come around today- they found the right antibiotics yesterday. The Delkos really wanted to wait for you to be well enough to come, but one of Eric's sisters only had so much time off of work, and she had to get back home, so it had to happen today. There was just no way you were going to be able to leave the hospital today."

He nodded. "How much longer am I here?"

"We aren't sure yet. The doctors haven't decided," his dad replied.

There was a knock at the door before Tim could say anything else. "Hello?" A woman poked her head into the room.

"Hi, Dr. Kellan," his father said.

"Ah! He _is_ awake!" she said, coming into the room. "I know, you have no idea who I am, do you? I'm Dr. Kellan. I put your jaw back together."

"She's the oral surgeon," his dad explained.

"Oh," he said.

"I see you've figured out the speaking through your teeth thing. You'll probably be able to actually talk by tomorrow. The swelling is going down well. I just stopped by to check on you and tell you what's been going on," she said.

He blinked at her. "I don't…"

"I know, you don't know anything. Here's the deal with your mouth- your jaw was broken in three places, and you had two teeth that were partially knocked out with damage to the roots," she said, pointing to a spot on her own face. "So what we did, since we had to extract the teeth and since there were multiple breaks, was use some plates and screws to reconstruct the part of your jaw that was broken," she explained. "We didn't want to wire your jaw shut because you'd have to drink through a straw, and you can't do that after you've had teeth extracted because it can cause dry socket, and you've got enough problems without having to deal with that."

"Oh," he said. "How long?"

"Recovery?" she asked. He nodded. "Well, the worst of the swelling will probably subside by the end of next week, although it probably won't disappear completely for a couple of weeks. Can't do solid food for two weeks, and then another two weeks on soft foods, and then we'll see about real food again. It's going to hurt to talk for probably a good two weeks, if not longer, but we're going to make you do it anyway, after tomorrow. You might have some numbness for a little while, because the nerves have to recover, but it should go away fairly quickly- we weren't near many of the major ones. And the kicker is, all of this will probably get derailed at some points, because we've got to do some more work on your mouth. We'll need to do implants for your two missing teeth, but I don't want to do those for a couple of weeks, to let things heal up some. And you're going to need some orthodontic work. Did you have braces when you were a kid?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No, thank God, he didn't need any, because we would never have managed it," his dad said wryly.

"Well, you're gonna get your chance now," she said, brightly. He looked at her warily. "It won't be so bad, I promise. We'll probably be able to put them on the inside of your teeth and no one will be the wiser. And if we do have to go the traditional route, they'll be a lot less clunky than what you're remembering from your high school days, I'm sure. It's going to be fine, really. But it's going to take about a year to finish all the orthodontics, and you'll likely be in some sort of retainer for three to five years."

"So, awhile," he said.

"Afraid so," she said. "There's something else, and this is the part everyone says you're going to hate."

"What?" he asked, warily. He had a sneaking suspicion this was going to be the work part.

"Well, you're likely not going to be back at work full time until after the first of the year," she said.

His eyes widened. "That long?"

"Yeah. No strenuous activity for two to three months," she said. "Now, that's both because of your jaw and because of the abdominal surgery."

"Oh," he said. "What did they do there?" he asked.

"I wasn't the surgeon for that, for obvious reasons, and I'm sure Dr. Barak will be in to see you at some point soon, so I can't tell you much, other than the fact that you had internal bleeding and they fixed it," she said.

He nodded. "How long here?" he asked.

"You're going to be with us for probably about a week. The infection is worrisome, because of the wounds in your mouth. If they get infected, it could go to your heart, and I'm sure you understand why that would be bad," she said. He nodded. "So, you're going to be on IV antibiotics for at least a week. We'll see what happens then."

"Ok," he said.

"It's a lot to take in, I know. I'm sorry to just info dump on you, but it seems to work out best when people know everything up front," she explained. "If you have questions that you think of later, I'll be available to answer them almost anytime, all right? Just let someone know, and they'll track me down."

"Thanks," he said.

"No problem. Now, quick question, how does your stomach feel?"

"Fine," he said.

"Ok, then, I'll give the order to take out the NG tube. That will probably make you a whole lot more comfortable," she said. "And with that, I will see you later. I'll come by to check up on you tomorrow, ok?"

"Ok," he said.

"Have a great night," she said as she left.

He looked at his dad. "So, two plates, now."

"Three, actually. I think they used two plates in your jaw."

"Two places, then," he said.

"Yeah, I was thinking about that when they told us what they had done. At least this time you're grown."

"No revisions," he said, nodding.

"Hopefully, anyway," he dad nodded.

He was quiet a moment, looking around the room. "Does it look really awful?" he asked.

"Well, you're not going to be winning many beauty contests anytime soon," his dad replied. Tim snorted, then winced. His dad laughed. "It's not really so bad. I can find a mirror, if you like."

He shook his head. "Not right now."

"Ok, then. Really, it looks better than it did when you were all bandaged up at first, so it's already improving. You've got stitches up towards your temple, closing up a gash there, and there's a nice neat line of stitches along your jaw, closing that up. They actually did the majority of the surgery through your mouth, but they had to close up the wound itself. You're pretty swollen, but even that's starting to look better than it did," he explained.

"Oh. Feels scary," he said.

"Yeah, I wouldn't take a spin around the nursery floor, but you probably look less scary than you think," his dad replied.

"Ok," he said. He was getting tired. "Sleepy," he said.

"Then go to sleep. Someone's been sitting with you all the time, so someone will be here when you wake up, even if it's not me, ok?"

"Ok," he said. "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks," he said.

"You're welcome, Little Man. Close your eyes now," his dad replied. Tim nodded obediently and did so, sliding into a dreamless sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

* * *

AN: Thank you all for the reviews! Y'all make me blush. Seriously, though, I'm glad people are enjoying the story.

* * *

I'm swimming with the weight of my heart  
Upstream to where the green river parts  
And two directions force my will to decide  
Shall I drift before I swim for my life

Knee deep in sadness soot  
We're gathering rust  
Embrace the quiet flood  
That's welcoming us

-"Sadness Soot", Grant Lee Phillips

* * *

Calleigh rolled her head from side to side as she walked down the hallway towards Tim's room. She was tired and drained, but it was her turn to sit with him, and she was hopeful that he might possibly be awake. Or at least awake enough that he'd stopped opening his eyes, looking around bewilderedly and bursting into tears, which is what he'd been doing the last three days anytime anyone tried to wake him up for anything. That might have been the most disturbing thing about the past three days, seeing Tim so unlike himself. Bad enough that Eric and John were gone and Horatio had lost it a little without seeing such a visceral reminder that Tim was the real victim in the situation.

She reached the room and stood in the doorway quietly a moment, assessing the situation. Danny was sitting in the chair working a crossword. Tim was asleep, but the NG tube was gone. "Hi," she said softly, entering the room.

Danny looked up "Hey there," he said, equally quietly. "How are you doing?"

"I'm ok, I think," she said. She had had many conversations with Danny over the past three days and she'd come to like him very much. It was clear that much of the best of Tim had come from his father- his snarkiness, his rough kindness, his wry sense of humor. Danny was what Calleigh imagined Tim would have been like if his life hadn't had a way of falling apart on him.

"Good," Danny said. "Our boy woke up," he added.

"Did he?" Calleigh said, hopefully. "Really awake?"

"Really awake," Danny confirmed. "For about half an hour or so. He was perfectly lucid and everything. And then he got sleepy again, but they did get him to actually wake up to take out the NG tube. He fell right back asleep, but he was awake. He's been asleep for an hour or so."

"Oh, thank God," Calleigh sighed.

"I know," Danny said. "He talked to Dr. Kellan already, so he knows about his jaw. Dr. Barak hasn't come by yet, so he hasn't quite heard all the details about everything else. But he knows he'll be here a week or so."

"Does he know about the work thing?" she asked.

"Yeah. He took it pretty well. Of course, he'd just gotten the pain meds right before, so that could account for it," Danny said wryly.

"Oh, I'm sure," she said.

"Mmph?" came a noise from the bed.

Calleigh looked over and saw Tim blinking sleepily. "Hey there," she said.

"Mmm. Cal," he mumbled.

"Yup. How're you feeling?" she asked.

"Thirsty?" he said, as though he wasn't sure.

"Thirsty we can fix," Danny said, pouring a cup of water from a pitcher and holding it out. Tim struggled to sit up better, wincing, but managed to take the cup without spilling it.

"Better?" Calleigh asked when he was finished.

"Sort of," he said.

"You need more pain medication?" she asked.

"Maybe not," he said.

"You can have more, I think," Danny said. "It's been about two hours."

Tim shook his head. "I'm ok, I think."

"All right, then. I'm going to go and leave you two be. I'll let the nurse know that you're awake again and that you might need the meds soon, ok?"

"Ok," Tim said.

"Ok. I'll be back later, or tomorrow, ok?" Danny said.

"Yeah," Tim replied. "See ya."

"See you later. Calleigh, you can call us if you guys need anything. I'm sure Melissa is going to want to come up later on."

"Will do," Calleigh replied. Danny nodded and left. "So, you're back with us now?" she said, turning back to Tim.

"Looks like." He raised a hand to scrub at his forehead. "Was it bad?" he asked.

"Was what bad? The last three days?" she asked. The last three days had been some of the most horrifying of her entire life. Bad didn't come close to covering it.

"No. The funeral."

She frowned. "How did you know the funeral was today?" she asked. She'd asked Tim's parents not to mention it if he woke up.

"Figured it out," he shrugged a little.

She sighed. His deductive reasoning skills obviously were functioning. "I was going to tell you tonight."

"Dad said. It's ok."

"It was hard, but nice, too, a bit. We were all sorry you weren't there. Mrs. Delko said that if you feel up to it at some point, she and Marisol would like to visit you. I told them I'd ask, but if you really don't want to see them, you don't have to. They'll understand, they said," she replied.

"Mmm," he said, noncommittally. Calleigh knew enough to read that as an "I'll think about it, but probably not".

She sat quietly for a moment, "I like your family," she said, finally. "They're good people."

"I know," he replied. "It's me, not them, you know that, right?"

"Mmm, I can see where it's a little bit them, too," she argued. He shook his head, so she let it drop. But she'd had plenty of time to watch the family dynamic between Danny, Melissa and Marianne and she could see where Tim might think it would be easier to just be a little bit distant. "They love you a lot, you know."

"Yeah," he said, playing with the edge of the blanket. His expression was hard to read through the swelling, but Calleigh knew when to stop. She wondered if anyone had told him about Hagen, and wondered if it would make things worse to tell him. He was curiously…flat. She almost wanted to tell him things just to make him really react to something, anything.

"What?" he asked after a moment.

"Hm?" she asked, looking up at him.

He made a little "go ahead" motion with his hand. "What aren't you telling me?"

There were many, many things she wasn't telling him… "Tim…"

"Yes?"

"You know they're…we're going to have to ask you questions," she said slowly. He nodded. "It's more important that usual. We don't have much to go on at all."

He shifted uncomfortably in the bed. "Oh."

"I'm just telling you, I didn't want you to not know. Because Stetler's involved, you know? And Horatio is a little…on edge."

"Cal, right now, I…" he trailed off. "Ok," he said, finally.

"It's not going to happen today. If I have anything to say about it, it's going to wait until you're out of here, but I'm probably going to be overruled there. At the least, I'm going to get Horatio to convince Stetler to wait until you're talking a bit better. You're a bit hard to understand right now, you know?" she said. He nodded. "So don't worry about it immediately, I just wanted to make sure you knew."

"I know," he replied. "What else?"

Calleigh sighed. "I don't know if this is the right time, but maybe it's best. Tim, the reason why they're so anxious to ask you questions is that you're the only one who can answer them."

He looked at her confused. "I don't…wait. I'm the only one…the only one who…made it?"

She nodded, looking down to blink back the sudden tears. "Yeah," she said softly, swallowing before looking back up at him.

His eyes were wide and scared. "Eric and Hagen both?"

"Yes," she replied.

He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling for a long moment. She watched him, concerned. "Tim," she said, scooting forward to touch his hand. He twitched it away. "Tim, it's ok. Don't do this," she said.

"Do what?" he asked, finally.

"Don't shut everyone out," she said, softly. "That's not going to help." She wished now that she'd waited. But she couldn't stand the idea of Stetler ambushing him with the news later, and she wasn't sure she could quite trust Horatio to prepare Tim properly for that encounter right now.

He didn't reply for a long moment. "Can I have some more water?"

Calleigh sighed. Well, she'd asked for a reaction, and that's what she'd gotten. She wasn't really surprised- she'd half predicted that he'd shut down. "Sure," she said. "Are you hungry at all?"

"No," he said. "Can't eat anyway."

"You can have soup," she said. "And Ensure. Actually, you're going to be drinking a whole lot of the Ensure," she said, handing him the glass of water.

"Mm", he said, handing the glass back to her.

"I'm not kidding, Tim. The oral surgeon told us that it's not unusual for people to lose significant amounts of weight after this sort of surgery. You don't have any to spare," she said.

"I know," he said. "I actually do notice, Calleigh."

"Yeah, well, you could fool us, sometimes," she said. "I'm serious, Tim. You just spent most of the last two weeks barely eating and sleeping before this happened. That put you at a big disadvantage as far as recovering is concerned. You don't have any reserves now, do you understand that? And it's going to be near impossible to build them back up right now. You're going to feel like hell for a very long time."

He'd looked away as she started in on the lecture. "Well, that's my problem, now, isn't it?" he said, finally.

"Oh, for God's sake." Calleigh bit back the rest of the angry statement she wanted to make. This was not the time. She shouldn't have even started the conversation. He'd just woken up and she was exhausted. Not the time at all. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He still wasn't looking at her. "I'm sorry," she said when she thought she might have her voice under control again.

He nodded. "S'ok."

"Do you want me to leave you alone?" she asked, finally. He looked at her and shook his head quickly, eyes scared. "Ok," she said, softly. "I won't go."

"Good," he said. He didn't twitch away this time when she reached out to touch his hand. "Hurts, a bit," he said.

"Your mouth? Or your stomach?" she asked.

"Both. It's starting to hurt to talk," he admitted.

"Then shut up already," she said, smiling a little.

He started to laugh a little, but his breath caught and he winced. "Ow."

"Yeah, I think you're done," she said. "I'm going to go find the nurse and get you some more of the good stuff, ok?"

"Ok," he nodded.

"All right, I'll be right back," she said, standing up.

"Cal?" he asked suddenly as she reached the doorway.

She turned, "Yeah?"

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I know. It's ok," she said. "You want anything else while I'm out here?" He shook his head. "Ok, I'll be back in a minute." She walked out of the room and leaned against the wall for a moment, eyes closed. This was not going to be easy. Sighing, she pushed off the walk and walked down the hall towards the nurse's station.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

* * *

Can you help me I'm bent  
I'm so scared that I'll never  
Get put back together 

You're breaking me in  
And this is how we will end  
With you and me bent

"Bent", matchbox twenty

* * *

Horatio met Alexx outside the elevator in the lobby. "Alexx."

"Horatio," she said, nodding.

"Is he ready?"

She narrowed her eyes at him and replied, "No, but I guess it doesn't matter now, does it?"

"Alexx…" he said, trailing off. She still gave him the same look. "It's not me you're mad at," he said, finally.

She sighed, the tension in her face sliding away. "No, it's not. But you're the one I'm gonna lecture, so pay attention."

"Always," he said.

"Timmy is awake, he's cleaned up, and he's up there in the sun room. He's also petrified. He's scared that he's not going to be able to answer everyone's questions. And he's terrified that you're going to be mad at him or disappointed in him, or that Stetler is not going to believe that he just plain does not remember everything," she said.

"I'm not going to be mad," he said. "Or disappointed."

"You know that and I know that and I tried to tell him that. But you _know_ him, Horatio. You know how he gets, you know how he's always half desperate for approval, and you know he always thinks everything is his fault. Even more so, right now," she sighed.

"I know."

"He's not…he's a lot more like the stray Sean dragged home right now than Tim. You understand what I'm saying?" she asked.

"I do," Horatio nodded. "I noticed that, too."

"Ok, then," Alexx nodded back. "Oh, and also keep in mind that even at the best of times, Timmy gets tongue-tied when he's flustered. Between the meds and the fact that talking is just plain physically difficult at the moment, he's having an especially hard time talking fluidly right now even if he's not flustered. So be patient and calm. It might be best if you don't just walk in there and ask open ended questions about things. It would probably be better to start with confirming things you know, and just ask him to fill in the details instead of expecting him to tell the whole story start to finish. That's also going to be easier on his mouth. He really can't talk without stopping for any real length of time at the moment," she warned.

"I know. I'm going to try and keep what he has to say to a bare minimum. It's not a deposition, it's a witness statement. We can do most of the talking for him," he replied.

"Ok, good," she said, glancing over his shoulder. "Well, then."

He turned to find Stetler striding up to them. "Horatio, Dr. Woods," Stetler said in greeting.

"Rick," Horatio nodded.

"Are we doing this upstairs?" Stetler asked.

"Yes, Tim's upstairs," Alexx said. "You will be patient and you will be gentle with him, Detective Stetler, you hear me?" she said sternly.

"Yes, ma'am, I do," Stetler replied easily. "I have no intention of making this any more difficult than it needs to be."

"You had better not," Alexx warned.

"Alexx," Horatio said quietly. The last thing he needed right now was Alexx locked into a standoff with IAB. He understood, and he was sympathetic to her mama bear tendencies where Speed was concerned- hell, he knew he could be equally overprotective. But right now, it was counterproductive.

"Right," she sighed. "I need to go to the lab," she said, turning to him. "Will you stay with him when you're done?"

He nodded, feeling guilty. He hadn't been really sharing the hospital duties with Alexx, Calleigh and Tim's family. No one had said anything, and he was sure that they figured it was because he had to keep running the lab. But it was more that the idea of being alone in the room with Speed made his stomach churn and his head ache. It was so hard to watch his friend as a victim. He had no idea how Calleigh and Alexx were possibly coping with it. It seemed beyond his strength, which shamed him.

"Good," Alexx said, nodding firmly. "Calleigh will be here later."

"All right," Horatio said. "I'll talk to you later."

"You'd better," she said, in a tone that plainly told him she wanted to hear every detail of what happened up there. She nodded towards Stetler and walked away.

Horatio hit the button to call the elevator. He and Rick stood quietly until the doors opened. As they stepped in and the doors closed, he turned to Rick and said, "Rick, Alexx is right. The Tim Speedle you're used to dealing with is not really up there right now. He's still in a lot of pain, and talking is very difficult for him right now because of the injuries to his mouth."

Stetler nodded. "I understand that."

"It might be best if we do most of the talking and just ask him for details," Horatio added.

"I think that would be acceptable," Stetler said, nodding.

"Ok, good," Horatio said. "He's probably going to be cooperative- he knows how important this is- but there just might be things he can't tell us. It might be best if I push him, more than you."

"I agree. I was going to mention that," Stetler replied.

Horatio looked at Rick sharply, but the elevator doors opened on the post-op ward before he could reply. He shook his head and started towards the sunroom at the end of the hallway.

Speed was sitting there, looking out the window, his back to the doorway. He seemed smaller than usual to Horatio, and fragile, despite the tension surrounding him. "Speed," he said quietly, not wanting to startle him.

He turned towards them, and Horatio felt, more than saw, Stetler tense as Speed faced them. His face was still something of a mess, although it looked remarkably better to Horatio, who had seen him when the swelling was at its worst. But if you hadn't seen how bad it had been previously, it would be rather surprising. The swelling had largely subsided, but the bruising was still luridly purple around his jaw, and yellowing towards his eyes. He was still rather pale underneath the bruises, and the stitches stood out starkly against the paleness and bruising. He nodded shakily, but didn't say anything.

"How are you feeling, Detective Speedle," Rick said, finding his voice.

"Ok," Speed replied. He didn't look or sound very ok to Horatio, but Speed did have a talent for understatement.

The two men sat down across from him. "Speed, what we're trying to do today is get a handle on some of the details of what happened," Horatio began. Speed nodded.

"This isn't an interrogation, we don't suspect you of any wrongdoing whatsoever," Stetler added.

Speed's face quirked into some semblance of his most cynical expression. It was marred somewhat by the fear in his eyes and the reduced mobility of his face, but Horatio recognized it immediately and groaned inwardly. That was just going to make it more likely that Speed would stonewall. Stetler was unfortunately unlikely to recognize this fact. "I see," Speed said, finally.

"Let's start at the beginning," Stetler said. "You and Detective Duquesne were working on a home invasion case that had some apparent ties to a case you worked on back in 1995, correct?" Speed nodded. "And on Tuesday the 21st, you found something that appeared to be a lead, yes?"

Speed nodded again. "It was an abandoned warehouse that the city now owns," he said slowly, but mostly clearly.

"And so you, Detective Delko and Detective Hagen went to investigate," Stetler said. "When you arrived what did you do?"

"Eric and I arrived first," Tim said. "We drove the perimeter."

"And when Detective Hagen arrived, that's when you went inside?" Tim nodded. "All right," Stetler continued. "From what we understand, it appears you were attacked shortly after entering the building, is this correct?"

Tim swallowed, but nodded. "It…yes."

"What happened?" Horatio asked quietly. Tim looked away and shook his head slightly. "Look at me, Speed," he said, leaning forward to catch Tim's eye. Speed looked up reluctantly. "It's all right. But I need you to focus and tell me what happened," Horatio said, placing a slight emphasis on "me". It might help if he felt like he was telling Horatio directly, without Stetler's involvement.

"I…I don't really…it's hard," Speed said.

"I know it is. Take it one step at a time. You can do this," Horatio said in the same quiet and calm voice. It was a voice he often used with Speed when he was flying off in fifty different directions at once. He hoped that it would help break though his hesitancy now.

Speed closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Without opening his eyes, he said slowly, "We walked in. It was dim. It appeared deserted. I saw something…I don't know what. Eric…Eric said not to get…not to get spooky on him. And then…I don't know, it was fast, I don't know how it happened."

"How Eric was shot?" Horatio asked, seeing that it was going to be necessary to feed some of the details to keep things moving.

Tim nodded jerkily. "I'm not…I'm not really sure what happened next."

"It's ok if you can't give us the exact order of things," Stetler said. "We can piece that together later."

"Um," Speed said. "Uh, there were shots fired."

"At you?" Stetler asked.

"Yeah," Tim said. "And, and then, Hagen started returning fire. And, um…" he trailed off and looked away again, shaking his head.

Horatio gave him a moment to collect himself, but when Speed kept staring vaguely at his hands, he leaned forward again and said, "Speed, I need you to focus, buddy."

Tim shook his head again, but looked up at them. "I, uh…I'm sorry, where were we?" he asked.

Horatio frowned, concerned, as Stetler said, "Hagen returned fire?"

"Oh…" he said. "Um, yeah."

"Did you draw your weapon at that point?" Stetler prompted.

"I…yeah," Speed nodded.

"Did you return fire?" Stetler prompted again.

Speed's attention seemed to wander again. It was clear that he did not want to answer that question. "Tim, look at me," Horatio said, reaching out this time to touch his arm. When he had some semblance of Tim's attention, he continued, "We know you fired your weapon. We found the casings. But we need to hear your version of events."

"I…can't," he whispered.

"You can, " Horatio said. "I know you can. It's over now, you're safe. It's ok. You can tell us."

Speed's eyes screwed shut and his hands began to shake slightly as he seemed to struggle to take a deep breath. Horatio left his hand on Speed's arm and waited. Stetler sat silently, seeming concerned. After what felt like an interminable amount of time, the words suddenly started pouring out of Speed.

"I…I fired back…and my gun…my gun…it went off, it fired, I didn't…I've never…that's never…" his voice caught and the breath he took sounded like half a sob. "only on the range, I'd never actually fired…and I hit someone…I've never…it's never…and then," he said, his eyes opening, but not seeing anything actually in the room. "Hagen went down, there was blood, blood all over. And I tried…something grabbed me…hit me, hit my face…he had a blue tattoo…blue tattoo, and, and…I don't know what…and then it hurt, hurt so much I couldn't…I don't know…I don't remember, I'm sorry, I don't remember, I can't tell you anymore," he finished in a rush, coming back to himself all at once. "I can't tell you anymore." His eyes were wild with fear and he was shaking.

"That's fine," Stetler said, unexpectedly. "I appreciate your talking with us. I know how difficult this was."

Tim blinked, but shrunk back in the chair. "I'm done?"

"Yes, that's enough. I may need you to clarify some things, but that can happen later," Stetler replied. Tim wrapped his arms around himself and nodded. "I hope you feel better soon, Detective," Stetler said, standing up. Tim nodded again, distractedly. He'd gone back to looking out the window. "Horatio, can I have a word?" Horatio looked up, and nodded, following Stetler into the hallway.

Rick looked disquieted as he led Horatio a bit away from the sun room. "Has anyone said when he can come back to work?"

Horatio shook his head. "The best estimate so far is the first of the year. Why?"

"So he hasn't done his post-traumatic yet, then?"

"No, not yet," Horatio replied. "He's had enough going on, and there's no rush to get it out of the way, really, since he won't be medically cleared for awhile."

"Horatio…he needs to talk to someone," Stetler said.

Horatio sighed. "I know." He'd known that for weeks. Months and years, even.

"He cannot go back to duty without some serious help. And I mean more than the post-traumatic. That was a panic attack, Horatio. It almost looked like a flashback. I've got an obligation to mention that to the medical board," Stetler said.

"I know," he nodded. "I wouldn't expect you not to."

"Good, because I wouldn't care. I don't care how much you think I dislike you and your team by extension, but I've got an obligation to the wellbeing of every member of the force, whether you realize that or not. I have seen people who looked like that before, Horatio. I've seen them eat their guns. And they always do it after they're back on duty and have everyone convinced they're fine. I do not need to live through another one of those investigations, Horatio. I won't have it," Stetler said, shaking his head. "He's got more reason than most, and that scares the living daylights out of me, and it should scare them out of you, too."

"It does," Horatio said, quietly, meeting Rick's eyes seriously. "It does very much."

"Good," Stetler said. He glanced away, seeming embarrassed. "If you need something to lean on him with, you can blame me, ok?"

"I'll bear it in mind," Horatio said.

"All right, then," Rick said. "I will talk to you later, then."

"All right," Horatio said. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Rick said, turning to walk down the hall.

Horatio sighed, and turned back to the sun room. He had a friend to care for.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

* * *

We are swimming with the snakes  
At the bottom of the well  
So silent and peaceful in the darkness where we fell  
But we are not snakes and what's more  
We never will be  
And if we stay swimming here forever we will  
Never be free

"Forgiveness", Patty Griffin

* * *

Calleigh entered Tim's room with a smile. "You about ready?"

"More than," he grumbled.

She laughed. "I know, I know."

"They said they'd be back in five minutes with the discharge papers. It's been fifteen," he complained.

"Well, you couldn't go anywhere until I got here anyway," she pointed out. "I'm your ride, after all."

"Mmm," he said.

"Want me to go see what the hold up is?" she asked.

"Please?" he said. She nodded and left the room.

As she neared the nurses' station, Angela, one of the nurses, looked up and said, "I'm coming, I'm coming."

Calleigh smiled. "I'm sorry, he's just…"

"Oh, I know. And we're about as anxious to get rid of him as he is to be gone," she joked.

"Can't say I blame you," Calleigh said, following the nurse back down the hall.

"All right, Mr. Speedle, here we go," Angela said, brandishing a handful of papers.

"Good," Tim said. "What's all that?"

"Your instructions, of course," Angela said. "Now, condition one of your release is that someone is going to stay with you. We've got that one met? Is one of your parents saying?"

"No, they went back to New York. I'm going to stay," Calleigh said.

"Ah! Sorry, I had down it was one of your folks," Angela said, crossing something out on her clipboard.

"I told them to go," Tim said. "They've got work to do. No sense in everyone losing money on this." Calleigh raised her eyebrows at him, but didn't reply.

"Alrighty, then, Calleigh is going to stay with you. Good," Angela said. "Condition two is that you're going to have the home health nurse come over three times a week for the next two weeks to take care of the IV antibiotics. It's all set up, you don't have to do anything," she said, handing him a sheet. "We did them this morning, so they'll come by on Wednesday, ok?"

"Fine," he said, taking the paper.

"Ok, these are your food instructions. Liquids only for two more days, then you can start with the soft stuff. Yogurt, ice cream, scrambled eggs, Jello, etc," Angela said, handing him another sheet.

"Joy," he mumbled, taking the second paper.

"These are your restrictions- no lifting anything over ten pounds, no strenuous activity, that sort of thing," she said, handing him a third paper. He sighed and took it.

"And now we've got your prescriptions. We're sending you with enough medication for 24 hours, so you have time to get them. If for some reason you can't get something from your pharmacy, call this number here, and they'll make arrangements for you," Angela said, holding out a small pile of prescription slips and a small bag. "And for the love of God, would you please take all your pain medicine? You won't get better if you're hurting all the time, you know."

"Yeah, yeah," he said.

"Alrighty, one last thing and I can sign you out. These are your follow up appointments. You've got one with Dr. Kellan, one with Dr. Barak and one with Dr. McCall," she said.

"Who the hell is Dr. McCall?" he asked, reaching out to take the last paper.

"Psych services," Angela said, briskly.

"When the hell did…" he trailed off after a look from Calleigh. "Fine," he sighed.

"Ok, then, Mr. Speedle, you're all set. Just sign here and we'll get you on your way," Angela said brightly, handing him her clipboard and a pen. He scanned the paper and scrawled his signature at the bottom. "Thank you. Get out of here, and never come back, please," she said, smiling.

"Trust me, I don't plan on it," he replied in kind.

"Good man," Angela said. "Good luck, Calleigh," she said, laughing as she left the room.

"Humph," Tim said.

Calleigh giggled. "Ok, bud, let's get you out of here."

The trip to Tim's house was uneventful. Calleigh noticed out of the corner of her eye how Tim shrank back from loud noises, especially when a car in the other lane honked its horn. She didn't comment on it, since she knew that would be the quickest way to put him on the defensive, but it bothered her. Something else to deal with, perhaps.

Tim looked relieved when they pulled into the driveway of his house. "See, it's still standing," she said, trying to be cheerful.

"Heh," he said, moving slowly to undo his seatbelt.

"Need a hand, or are you ok?" she asked as she got out of the car.

"I'm…yeah, maybe," he said, trying to get down from the jeep.

"Here," Calleigh said, offering him her arm. He still hissed with pain as he landed on his feet. "Maybe the jeep wasn't the best choice," she said, apologetically.

"No, it's ok. It's my knee, it's stiffened up from not being up and around so much," he said.

"Ah," Calleigh said. Danny and Melissa both had warned that was likely to happen. They also warned her not to ask about it, saying that it was a long story that Tim was unlikely to be interested in telling just then. So she didn't say anything, just followed him up the walkway.

Two cats came rushing towards the door as they opened it. "They missed you," Calleigh said, as Tim bent down slowly to pet them and then shoo them back.

He stumbled forward and slumped down on the couch, sighing as he leaned his head back. Calleigh smiled to herself as she shut the door behind them and put his bag on a chair. "What?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said, looking around. "My parents cleaned."

Calleigh looked around. The house didn't look any different to her. "How can you tell? Your house is never dirty."

"My house is never cluttered," he corrected. "It certainly does get dirty. I hadn't been doing much outside of dishes and the litter boxes lately. I needed to dust and mop and stuff."

"I couldn't tell," she said, sitting down.

"I could," he said.

"Fair enough. So your parents cleaned," she said.

"I'm still surprised they stayed here at all, actually," he said mildly. "Last time they came to Miami, they told me my house was a pit."

"Because it wasn't clean?" she asked.

"No, because it sort of was. A pit, I mean. I wasn't done with it yet," he sighed.

"Done how?" she asked.

"Fixing the remodel gone bad," he said, closing his eyes.

"I don't get it," she said.

"Mmm. The house was a bank repo. The people who'd lived here before used all their equity to do a major remodeling project and screwed themselves over with cost overruns and stuff. They got behind, somehow, and couldn't get caught up. So the house was really, really cheap because it was barely livable," he explained.

"So you bought it," Calleigh said.

"Yup."

"And fixed it up?"

"Yup."

"How did you afford it?" she asked. Tim had been living here for at least the five years she'd known him. She knew exactly how much money he made, and knew it had probably been even less when he'd bought the house.

"Did most of it myself, so just had to pay for materials" he said, sleepily. "Got a loan for some of it. I didn't do it all at once. It took like six years to finish."

"Six years?" she said, incredulously.

"Mm-hm," he mumbled. "I had the major stuff done within the first two years- the plumbing and the electrical. So it was livable, just not terribly comfortable. The rest of it just got done as I had time and cash. And you know, there was hurricane damage a couple of years, so that slowed things down some."

"Wow," Calleigh said. She looked around again. She'd always thought Tim's house was plain, but nice. She hadn't known how much work had gone into it, though.

"Mmm," he mumbled. She looked over at him. He looked no better than half awake.

"Sleepy?" she asked.

"Mm-hm."

"Come on, then, let's get you to bed," she said, standing up.

"'M fine here", he said sleepily.

"You'll get a crick in your neck," she said.

"'s ok"

"Come on, Tim," she said, reaching out for his arm. "Bed."

"Ok, ok," he muttered, letting her pull him upright, carefully. She maneuvered him through the hallway to his bedroom. "Ah, bed," he said, cracking an eye open.

"Yes, it's your bed," she said, amused. "Come on." She got him tucked in and looked at him as he blinked sleepily. "Need something?"

"No."

"Then go to sleep," she said, smiling.

"Be here?" he asked, his forehead wrinkling.

"Of course I'm going to be here. I'm not going anywhere," she said.

"Mm. Good," he said, as he closed his eyes. She watched him for a moment to make sure he'd fallen asleep and then gathered up the laundry basket on the floor of his closet. Laundry would give her something to do.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

* * *

AN: Two chapters in one day...my goodness! We're almost through here, I think that's why.

* * *

And I'm so lonely I don't even want to be with myself anymore  
I just want to feel safe in my own skin  
I just want to be happy again

"Honestly OK," Dido

* * *

He thrashed about, trying to shrink away from the pain and the images burning in his mind. The old nightmares blended seamlessly with new ones until he didn't know up from down, left from right, only now and the stark unrelenting parade of images.

"Hey, hey, it's ok, I'm here, it's all right, Tim, open your eyes, it's all right…" Calleigh's voice penetrated and let him wrench his eyes open.

"Cal?"

"I'm right here, honey, I'm right here," she said, softly, a hand resting on his head. She was sitting on the edge of his bed, one leg tucked up under her. He blinked her into focus.

"I just…" he whispered.

"I know," she said, softly. "It's all right."

"Time's it?" he asked.

"About three," she said. "You've been asleep about four hours."

"Oh," he said, blankly.

She smiled sadly at him. "Are you hungry?"

"No," he said.

"Do you want to eat anyway?" she asked.

"No. Please?" he asked. His stomach was all twisted in knots. How could anyone eat?

"Ok," she said, reluctantly. He knew she shouldn't give into him, but he was glad she was. She looked tired and sad. "Let me get you a washcloth," she said finally.

_No, don't leave me,_ he thought, panicked. His hand shot out to catch her arm tightly. "No," he said, breathlessly.

"Ok, ok, I won't go," she soothed. "I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere." She smoothed back his hair and looked at him speculatively.

He looked away, embarrassed. "Sorry."

"Don't be," she said, quietly. Another moment passed and she said finally, "Here, scoot over." He did so automatically, surprised when she stretched out on the bed next to him. "Ok?" she asked, tentatively.

"Yeah," he said, still not quite looking at her. She chuckled quietly, but kept smoothing down his hair. It felt nice.

"Want to tell me about it?" she asked.

"No."

"All right," she said.

They were quiet like that for a long time. Tim had almost drifted back to sleep, when he became aware that Calleigh's breathing was funny. Short and choppy. He turned towards her and found her fighting back tears. "Shh, s'ok," he whispered, squirming up onto his side with a wince.

"I'm…I'm sorry," she choked out. "I shouldn't…you don't need…Oh, God." She was crying then. Tim didn't know what else to do but reach out an arm to pull her close.

"It's all right," he whispered into her hair as she cried.

"It's just…Eric and John, and you've been so sick and we were so scared we'd lose you too, and…" she sobbed.

"I know," he whispered. He knew that this had been just as hard for her. For her and Alexx and H. He just couldn't do anything about it. But now that the worst of the crisis was over, Calleigh's tight grip on herself was starting to dissolve. He could understand that.

Calleigh's storm was short-lived and she pulled back from him, eyes red. "I'm so sorry," she said.

"No. Not allowed," he said quietly.

"I'm not?" she asked, frowning a bit.

"If I'm not, you're not" he explained.

She smiled a little at that. "That would be a bit hypocritical of me, wouldn't it?"

"Yes," he said.

"All right," she said, laughing a bit. "I'm not sorry, how's that."

"Better," he replied. He tried to reach for the nightstand, but couldn't manage. "Kleenex", he said when she looked at him questioningly.

She laughed and sat up to retrieve them. "Thanks."

"Welcome."

"Ok, then," she said. "Is your mouth hurting?" she asked.

"A little, why?" he admitted.

"You're overdue for a pain pill. And you were getting a little monosyllabic," she said, pushing herself up. "I'll go get you one. I need a drink of water anyway."

"Ok," he said. He watched her leave the room.

She returned quickly, with a washcloth, a bottle of pills and a glass of water. "Here," she said, offering him the washcloth. "That'll help."

He took it obediently and wiped his face, careful to avoid the stitches. She shook out a pill and handed it to him in exchange for the washcloth. "Thanks," he said.

"Anytime," she said, smiling. "You still tired?"

"Yeah," he admitted.

"Why don't you go back to sleep? We'll deal with food when you wake back up," she suggested.

"Ok," he mumbled, his eyes already growing tired. "Tired."

"I know you are."

"No, of sleeping," he said.

She laughed. "I know. But it'll make you better quicker. So get as much as you can, ok?"

"All right," he agreed, letting his eyes close again.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

* * *

Cast me gently into morning  
For the night has been unkind

-"Answer", Sarah McLachlan

* * *

Her cell phone's ring woke Calleigh up. She'd stretched out on the couch with a cat in her lap just to close her eyes a moment and had barely noticed she'd fallen asleep. The phone rang again insistently, and she reached out quickly to grab it before it woke Tim up. "Hello?" she said in a sleep roughened voice.

"Hey, sugar, it's me," Alexx's voice replied. "Were you sleeping?"

"Yeah, apparently," she said, struggling to sit up. She glanced at the clock; it was nearing 6. "What's up?"

"Not much, I just thought I'd call and make sure one of you was awake before I just walked in. I've got dinner," Alexx said.

"You do? What?" she asked, yawning.

"Chinese. I thought it might be worth it to get Timmy to go off on his rant about the lack of decent Chinese food in this city," Alexx said, laughing.

Calleigh laughed. "It probably would be. I feel bad eating in front of him, though," she admitted.

"Don't worry. I didn't get anything he likes other than Hot and Sour soup," Alexx replied. "I did, however, bring Cashew Chicken and Sweet and Sour Pork."

"Mmm, yum," Calleigh sighed. "Where are you?"

"In the driveway," Alexx said, with a hint of amusement in her voice.

"Oh. Well, in that case, I guess I could just get up and answer the door," Calleigh said, doing just that as she hung up her cell phone.

Alexx laughed as she handed her a large bag. "That might be easiest, yes."

Calleigh shook her head as she led Alexx back to the kitchen. "I don't know where my mind is, honestly," she admitted.

"You ok, honey?" Alexx asked, looking concerned.

Calleigh leaned back against the counter and sighed. "Yeah, I'm ok. I just feel bad- I kind of lost it and started crying on him."

"Oh, baby," Alexx said, reaching out to pull Calleigh into a warm hug. "It's ok, I'm sure he didn't mind."

"He didn't," Calleigh confirmed. "In fact, he told me I wasn't allowed to apologize."

"Well, you shouldn't apologize. It's been a very hard couple of weeks," Alexx said. "And you're stressed and tired. It'll be better now he's home. Do you want me to stay with him tonight?"

"No," Calleigh said, shaking her head. "I promised I'd stay."

"All right," Alexx said, nodding. "Is he asleep."

"I think so," Calleigh said. "Do you want to get dinner set up and I'll go wake him up?"

"Sounds good," Alexx nodded.

Calleigh nodded and went down the hallway to Tim's bedroom. "Hey, Tim, dinner's here," she said softly, pushing the door open. He was curled on his side, still asleep. "Tim," she said, a bit louder. He jumped awake, wide eyed. "Sorry, sweetie. I just wanted you to know Alexx brought dinner."

"Mmph. Not hungry," he said, rubbing at his eyes.

"Not even for Hot and Sour soup?" she asked. He stopped and looked at her. "I mean, I _could_ eat all of it…"

"Maybe a little," he allowed.

She smiled. "Well, come on, then."

He levered himself up slowly out of bed and followed her down the hall to the kitchen. "Hey, baby," Alexx said, as he slumped into one of the kitchen chairs.

"Mmm," he said, still not entirely awake.

Calleigh chuckled to herself as she examined the pill bottles. She really should make a chart for this, she mused as she puzzled out what medicine Tim ought to get with his dinner.

Alexx set a bowl of soup down in front of Tim and plates of other things at the other two places. Tim tested the soup warily, then shrugged. "Is it ok?" Alexx asked.

"It's ok," he said, offhandedly. "There's no good Chinese in this town anyway."

Calleigh couldn't help it. She dissolved into fits of helpless laughter. Alexx wasn't far behind her, either. "What?" Tim asked, grumpily.

"I told you," Alexx said, gasping for breath. "I told you he'd start in on the lack of decent Chinese food."

"Yeah, you did," Calleigh said, wiping tears from her eyes.

Tim regarded both of them with his best "I'm surrounded by crazy people" look and went back to his soup.

"You want to know the funniest part?" Alexx asked.

"What," he mumbled.

"Your parents said the exact same thing," she said, still laughing.

Calleigh giggled as she sat down. "About the food?"

"Yeah," Alexx said. "It was amazing. I hadn't even said anything about it."

"Well, it's true," Tim said, looking at them. "There _is_ no decent Chinese food in Miami."

Alexx and Calleigh carefully didn't look at each other, to avoid setting themselves off again. "Whatever you say, honey," Alexx said.

Calleigh just shook her head and kept eating. The food tasted pretty good to her. "Sometime you'll have to show us what real Chinese tastes like," she said, glancing at Tim.

He shook his head. "I don't know how to make it."

"Well, there's a pity," she said. "Maybe I'll buy you a cookbook. Keep you out of trouble," she teased.

He glared at her, but she just laughed. "I can keep out of trouble."

"Of course you can," Calleigh agreed, trying to hide her laughter at that idea.

He shrugged and sat back, obviously finished with the soup. Alexx glanced at the bowl and said, "Keep going."

"I'm not hungry," he said.

"I don't care," Alexx said, eyebrows raised. "Five more spoonfuls."

He sighed, but complied. "Happy?"

"Somewhat," she said. "You've…"

"Gotta eat, I know," he grumbled.

"Are you not eating because it hurts to eat or because you really just don't want to?" Calleigh asked.

He squinted at her, obviously not expecting the question. "Both?" he said, questioningly.

"How does it hurt? Does your mouth hurt?" Alexx asked. He squirmed, but shook his head. "Your stomach?" Alexx asked, again.

"Yeah," he admitted, not quite looking at either of them.

"Well, honey, why didn't you say so?" Alexx sighed. "Good God, child. A stomachache we can fix, you know that, right?"

He shrugged. "It hurts most of the time, anymore," he admitted.

Calleigh bit her lip. Alexx shook her head. "We've got to do something about that, then," she said. "Have you tried some antacids?" He shrugged again. Alexx sighed and got up to get her purse. She rummaged through it a second and came up with a foil packet of pills. "Here," she said. "It's Zantac. Take it and see if that helps."

He swallowed the pill obediently. Calleigh said, "We probably ought to let a doctor know about that."

"Yes, they can probably prescribe something better," Alexx said, nodding.

"I don't want more pills," he said, softly. "There's too many already."

"Honey, we know it's hard. But you have to get better. There will be fewer as you get better, you know that," Alexx soothed.

"I didn't say anything about my stomach for a reason, you know," he grumbled.

"What, you're a closet masochist?" Calleigh said. "I think that secret's out of the bag, there, Tim."

He tried to glare at her, but slumped back in his chair instead. "You're going to make me take more, too."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"The psych guy?" he asked, accusingly.

"Ah," Calleigh said, nodding. She'd wondered how long it would be until they had this conversation. "Tim, I don't know what the doctor is going to say about that. I haven't talked to him."

"And neither have I," Alexx said. "However, you know full well that it would be a good idea. It was a good idea before."

"That…" he said, looking up at Alexx. "That was a long time ago."

"That may be, but I always thought it was a bad idea to go off the medication, Tim. I told you so at the time," Alexx said. Calleigh looked between them, confused, but a headshake from Alexx told her not to pursue it. It didn't surprise her- she'd always had a feeling that Tim wasn't exactly a stranger to mental health interventions of some sort.

"Honey, we just want you _better_", Calleigh said, after a long, tense moment. "If getting better means you take some medicines, well, that's a small price to pay, don't you think?"

"It's not ever going to _be_ better," he mumbled.

"It is," she insisted. "It will be. It's going to take time, but it will be better, Tim. You just need to trust us," she said, plaintively,

He looked like he was about to make a retort, but stopped dead in his tracks, staring off at nothing. "Tim?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said, quickly. "Nothing. It's…ok, fine, whatever you say," he said, holding his hands up in surrender.

Calleigh and Alexx exchanged wary looks at Tim's abrupt capitulation. "Honey?" Alexx asked.

"It's fine. I'm tired," he said. "I don't want to argue anymore."

"Then we don't have to," Calleigh said.

"Ok, good," he sighed. "I'm sorry, I just…I don't even know."

"It's ok," Alexx said. "You're tired, you're sick, you're off balance. It's understandable."

"Yeah," he said. He played with the edge of the bowl for a moment, before looking up and saying "Thank you. I know this isn't…what you'd maybe like to be doing."

"Maybe not, but we're your friends. We _want_ to take care of you," Calleigh pointed out.

"I'm just saying, I know I'm a pain in the ass," he said, almost quirking a smile.

"Yes, you are," Alexx said, amused. "But I think you're entitled at the moment."

"Besides, we can be pains in the ass too," Calleigh pointed out.

"Oh, I know," he sighed.

She laughed. "It's really fine, Tim. If we didn't want to be here, we wouldn't be, ok? So enough of that. We're going to get you better if it takes until the end of time, all right?"

"All right," he said, softly. "I…really do appreciate that."

"We know," Alexx said.

They were quiet a moment before Alexx clapped and said, "All right, then. What would you really like to do tonight, Tim?"

He blinked. "Um, I don't know."

"Oh, come on, I'm sure there's something you'd like to do. Do you want to watch a movie, play some games?" Calleigh cajoled.

"We could call Horatio over and make him play Trivial Pursuit with us," Alexx suggested. "Peter's got the kids, I don't have to be home anytime soon."

"Sounds good to me," Calleigh said, thinking that it would also wrench Horatio out of _his_ head.

"I guess," Tim said, shrugging. But Calleigh could tell that the nonchalance was hiding actual interest in the plan.

"Then it's a plan. Calleigh, you call Horatio. I'll clean up the kitchen. Tim, you go find the board game, ok?" Alexx said, pushing away from the table.

Tim nodded, and pulled himself upright. Calleigh said, "You got it," and went off to find her cell phone. One night to not think was just what the doctor ordered, she thought.

End.

* * *

AN: Whew! That was quite a ride. Anyway, keep an eye out for "All These Things" which will likely answer a whole lot of questions like, "What the hell is up with Horatio?" and "Why is Calleigh such a good caretaker anyway?" and "What in God's name _happened _to Tim to make him this way, anyway?"

* * *


End file.
